It's amazing, that which is considered acceptable. Goatees, nicknames, skinny jeans, brown shoes, charging for public transport, Twitter, calling people your majesty and the like. Aren't people funny?

Also on that list would be found snowflake pyjama away kits – but for Lee Sharpe (R v White, 1910).

Sharpe first drifted into consciousness as part of the first wave of Fergie's Fledglings, alongside such luminaries as Lee Martin, Deiniol Graham, David Wilson, Mark Robins, Tony Gill and Russell Beardsmore. Though playing left–back at the time, he was easily the best of them, minuscule though it said – they were mainly a diversionary tactic, necessity disguised as virtue as part of a subterfuge aimed at obscuring the fact that United were bile. But once the press supplied nomenclature, and alliterative at that, they became a thing, and things are always good. Two seasons later, and the thing had turned out to not be actually be a thing after all – though the effs most certainly stayed. Wilson and Graham were vanished, Robins had served his purpose, Gill forced to retire and Beardsmore waiting for the lard sandwich and foot transplant that never came.

Over the first seven games of the 1990–91 season, Sharpe didn't feature at all, before a 4–0 defeat at Anfield – a game in which, curiously, United weren't that bad, by the standards of the time – earned him a place on the bench for the return to Europe against those Pesci Munkas . Retaining his spot for the following league game, he was left out of the next two before returning for the return. After United struggled to win first that, and then against Halifax, he was picked to start in a home defeat to Arsenal, on the left wing, and kept his place for a European win over Wrexham and then a derby in which United retrieved a 1-3 deficit in the final 10 minutes.

Next up was Liverpool in the League Cup; Liverpool who had won nine out of 10 in the league. United sat in sixth place, but their tally of 14 points was only five more than that of Sunderland in 17th. Somehow, Liverpool were thoroughly trounced, with Sharpe scoring – yet still, this wasn't especially noteworthy. Throughout the 80s, despite conspiring to lose to absolutely everybody else, they had constantly redeemed seasons by avoiding defeat against Liverpool. In 1986–87, the club's sole away win came at Anfield. In 1987–88, they again turned 1-3 into 3-3, this time with 10 men. And on New Year's Day 1989, the furious, finesseful, feline, fulminating Fergie's Fledglings came back from a goal down to win 3-1. Peculiarly, beating Liverpool revealed nothing.

But in the fourth round of the Rumbelows Cup, United drew Arsenal; Arsenal who would powergrind to the title losing but one game and conceding just 18 goals in 42 games. As Rob Smyth wrote in these pages, "this was the night on which Ferguson finally located United's G–spot, when he swapped Sextonian football with sexy football to quite devastating effect". Clayton Brehme put them ahead with a first-minute free-kick and on the stroke of half-time, Mark Hughes added another. Odd – really odd – but decidedly unepochal. Then, with seconds of the half remaining, Sharpe snatched possession from Lee Dixon and advanced inside towards goal, taking all due care to keep his right boot well away from the ball, until pressure from Nigel Winterburn on his left side left him with no choice but to unfurl a right-laced curler that burned over David Seaman and in off the bar, prompting a minor knee slide. Even then, though, it wasn't the biggest deal; all sorts of uselessnesses have scored great goals with their wrong feet, so most likely, it was a fluke.

Shortly after half-time, Smith pulled a goal back, then Adams another, and suddenly the pressure was on. But remarkably, United – famed for their flakiness – were unswerving. Hughes picked up possession with his back to goal, 50 yards out, and laid it back to Brian McClair, who found Denis Irwin outside him with a characteristic poke. Rattling a quick, low pass to the feet of Hughes and racing to gather the return, his cross on the run picked out the head of Sharpe, who glided into a glancing header into the far corner and kept on running, adding flapping arms to the existing knee slide while parading in front of the away support.

As it happened, Sharpe completed a hat-trick, completing his ascending scale of celebrations with a forward roll, though it didn't matter because with that second goal, everyone knew: he was Lee Sharpe, he was handsome, he was happy and he was here. But most importantly, he was like you. OK, you didn't look like him, but beauty defined by a smile not by symmetry is approachable, not intimidating; and though you couldn't play like him either, his style had a simplicity that made it seem almost attainable. Those specs of detail aside, he was just a boy doing what every boy wanted to do or wished he was capable of doing: precisely what he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted, with the sole purpose to enjoy himself as much as possible. Lee Sharpe just flowed.

Through the 80s, the best footballers in the country were just that; the best footballers in the country. Bryan Robson, Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish, Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley knew plenty about pig–bladder manipulation, but their zest was confined solely to it, and though Paul Gascoigne was different, he connected in the third person not the first. But now, after a generation away, the footballing pop star was back. DH

Nobody complains after scoring a winning goal at Anfield, but there are some circumstances in which the sensation would surely be particularly enjoyable:

• If the scorer was a former Liverpool player.

• If they were a current or former Everton player.

• If the scorer was a boyhood fan of either Liverpool or Everton.

• If the scorer was at an early stage in their career.

• If they were playing for the kind of little club that has no business beating the likes of Liverpool.

• If the victory ended a nasty run of bad form.

• If the goal was particularly good or came at a particularly important moment in the match.

Phil Jevons was a Liverpool-supporting Red-reject former-Evertonian Grimsby Town forward in his first season playing regular first-team football, who had crashed home an unstoppable 30-yard shot in the last minute of extra-time to end a run of four defeats, no wins and 15 goals conceded in five games and knock Liverpool out of a competition they had won the previous season. It was the perfect storm of amazingness. "It is just unbelievable," the player, who had swapped Liverpool's youth system for Everton's aged 13 when told he wouldn't make the grade at Anfield, said that night. "To come back to Liverpool and score a goal like that is real Roy of the Rovers stuff. My family were all kissing me afterwards. When it came to me I thought 'what the hell' and just tried my luck." His manager, Lennie Lawrence, declared it "a result that will live in the memory of everyone in Grimsby forever", but it wasn't bad for neutrals either. SB

Outside of love, it's fairly clear that there's nothing in the world better than sport. Only religion and politics provoke anything like the same extremes of emotion, but generally without quite the same levels of levity, spontaneity and brilliance. As regards the other comparators, sex, drugs and alcohol are largely ephemeral, and though the arts are transformative and emotive, they remain a degree removed. If the Olympics proved anything (they didn't) then it was this.

Rogers – first of Swindon Town, then of Crystal Palace, QPR and Swindon Town again – was such a player. Born in Paulton, Somerset, he was allowed to sign for his local club – imagine! – as opposed to being holed up in some academy having the flair coached out of him, then force-fed tactics in a hydromassaging swimming pool treadmill, with agents and benjamins spilling out of his hair like nits. Swindon were in Division Two at the time, but were relegated in 1965, subsequently finishing seventh, eighth and ninth. In 1968-69 they would be promoted, but the enduring memory of that season is their League Cup triumph.

Wins against Torquay, Bradford, Blackburn and Coventry earned them a quarter-final against Derby, a single deflected goal enough to win a replay and setting up a semi-final with Burnley. Each side won its away leg 2-1, but Swindon somehow fashioned a 3-2 replay result to earn a trip to Wembley, where they would play Arsenal, who were two seasons away from winning the league and Cup double, and the majority of that team – not squad – was already in place. Goalkeeper Bob Wilson and defenders Peter Simpson, Frank McLintock and Bob McNab were protected by the midfielders George Armstrong and Peter Storey, with the striker John Radford also starting, and George Graham was sub. Swindon were outsiders of Holden Caulfield proportions, and even 20 years later, a regional programme marking the occasion talked of them "actually reaching the League Cup final, against every conceivable chance".

In the weeks leading up to the game the town was gripped with what must mandatorily be described as Cup fever. Entailing bunting, banners, ticket hunts and a post office special issue, people actually cared, and not because other people were watching. Arsenal's game the previous week had been postponed due to eight of their players suffering with flu, and they were not amused when a combination of heavy rain and heavy horses of the year left the pitch looking like an aerial view of the globe. Peculiar though this appeared, it remained less so than a colour scheme dictated by competition rules stating that in the event of a clash, both teams must use a change strip. So Arsenal played in yellow and Swindon in white, or for those watching on telly, Arsenal wore off-white with increasing black and Swindon wore white with increasing black. The game was almost certainly the least television-friendly of all-time, and accordingly, one of the most television-friendly.

It proceeded as you'd expect – Arsenal dominating, Swindon resilient. "Arsenal murdered us," admitted the defender Peter Burrows. But behind him, Peter Downsborough was in remarkable form, somehow stopping everything; "What a goalkeeper!" rhaposidised Brian Moore. Then, on 35 minutes, the players contrived the most remarkable of goals, scruffier than Smudge in Bash Street, and suddenly Swindon were ahead, Roger Smart ecstatically thumping the ball against the net though he'd already run it well over the line.

The second half was more of the same. But Swindon held out, until, with four minutes remaining goalkeeper Downsborough fumbled, the ball looped up, and Bobby Gould headed the equaliser. "My goodness is he pleased with life!" shrieked Moore. "He's crying! Bobby - Gould - is - crying!" Yet, in extra-time, Arsenal tired and Swindon did not, on account of gruelling Thursday training sessions and the experience of playing on the County Grounds bog every other week. As they increased the pressure on the Arsenal defence, a Smart header hit the post, and after the resultant corner remained uncleared, yet another goalmouth scramble produced a chance for Rogers, which he slotted it like it was nothing. It was not like nothing.

In the second period, Arsenal dredged up sufficient reserves of energy to once again exert control, Swindon serried in their own half. Then, with 11 minutes to go, an attack broke down and the ball was cleared to Rogers alone in the Arsenal half and haring towards Wilson's goal.

Like the power of love, one-on-ones are a curious thing – make one man weep, make another man sing, just ask Gordon Smith. Strikers spend entire games making runs to facilitate precisely such an eventuality, yet when they arrive, they can be as undesirable as radioactive herpes. Some situations, there's space but not time; the striker must make up his mind in an instant and then shoot, because he's so near to goal. Other occasions, there's a defender in pursuit, the striker's mind focused on making sure to get in a shot, rather than what might happen subsequently.

But none of this applied to Rogers; no one was catching him, and initially, no one seriously attempted to catch him. He had a full two seconds, alone with his thoughts and the ball to contemplate how he might address the moment that would define his existence and indelibly enhance that of thousands of others … and he annihilated it with an élan of chilling understatement. As Wilson came out, he shimmied a hip inside, outside and inside again, nipped back outside, this time taking the ball with him and leaving the thoroughly diddled Wilson contorted in a limbed heap, then clipped – rather than rolled – it into an empty net. Game over, life and legacy secured.

"We've lost a game of football to a thing that I can only describe as an act of God," said Swindon's Andy King, whose side had led 2-0 with less than 15 minutes to play, only to have a man sent off with two minutes left and be denied victory by a stoppage-time header from the visitors' marauding goalkeeper. This wasn't a common-or-garden bundle-over-line finish from a man throwing himself guilelessly about an opponents' penalty area, either – it was a headed finish of genuine excellence. "It just fell on my head," deadpanned Robinson, whose next problem was that he didn't know how to celebrate:

"It went in and I thought, 'What do I do?' So I just ran to the corner like everyone else does. Everyone jumped on top of me and I just crumpled to the ground. Saves are very important to goalkeepers and that's how you earn your money and are judged, but this is something different. This is a one-off and something that stays with you for the rest of your life."

Robinson was again Leeds's hero in the penalty shoot-out, saving Stefani Miglioranzi's effort, and when the Swindon captain Andy Gurney hit the post the contest was over. Leeds had won only one of their six matches before they hosted Swindon, and then lost their next game 4-0 at Everton to slip into the bottom three, and five of their next six as well. At the end of the season they suffered a relegation from which they still have not recovered. This, though, was a night to celebrate, at least as much as a dramatic last-gasp miracle victory over a side which they might have expected to beat easily can be celebrated. Swindon, meanwhile, were left with nothing. "It's a cruel way to go out of a competition," concluded King. "I'm going to get drunk now." SB

There's not a whole lot to be said for a reputation strongly rooted in the reflected presence of Elton John and Margaret Thatcher, but that was the fate of Luton Town until the Littlewoods Cup final of 1988 – though it would, of course, be remiss not to nod towards Antic! Their previous appearance in a major final, in 1959, had resulted in a 1-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest, whose winning goal came courtesy of Royston Dwight – uncle of the aforementioned tinkler, Reginald. And in 1985, the club introduced an identity card scheme for home supporters, and banned those following their teams away – the manager at the time, David Pleat, later admitted that his chairman, David Evans, was hoping to be rewarded for the gesture with a safe Tory seat to contest at the 1988 general election.

For once, obsequiousness had consequences. Luton were excluded from the 1986-87 League Cup, and in 87-88, forced to play their third-round tie with Coventry at Leicester City's Filbert Street. This was part of a torturous but exhilarating route to the final, which also took in games against Wigan, Ipswich, Bradford and Oxford. They would meet the holders Arsenal, who had beaten Liverpool the previous season – the first time they had lost a game in which Ian Rush had scored.

But this was not Luton's first Wembley appearance of the season – a month earlier, they'd faced Division Two side Reading in the final of the Simod Cup, accepting a 4-1 deconstruction for their trouble – and in between, lost an FA Cup semi-final to Wimbledon, who would go on to amaze Liverpool and everybody else in the final. It is one of football's enduring miseries that the two sides would meet 23 years later in the Conference play-off final, both victims of the football authorities.

Though an eventual classic, the game was fairly dull for the first hour and more. Luton had established an early lead through Brian Stein, which they held until Martin Hayes, on as a substitute for Perry Groves – a crucial contributor from the bench the previous season – equalised in the 71st minute. Almost immediately afterwards, they went ahead through Alan Smith and continued on the offensive, Smith hitting the woodwork and Hayes, David Rocastle and Michael Thomas all drawing saves from Andy Dibble, only playing because of an injury to magnificent nutter Lesley Sealey. Then, with 10 minutes remaining Rocastle was fouled in the box, and even the relatively friendly officiating of Joe Worrall deemed it a penalty. Oddly, given the presence of Hayes, Nigel Winterburn stepped up to take the kick, and saw his effort pushed around the post by Dibble, diving low to his left – an intervention that did not go unnoticed in Chester-le-Street or Trafford Borough. Earlier in the season, in an FA Cup fifth-round tie at Highbury, Arsenal led Manchester United 2-1, when United won a penalty with only three minutes remaining – which Brian McClair summarily leathered into the North Bank. Too mortified even for his signature nasal mucus-expulsion, he was harangued by the self-same Winterburn, prompting Bryan Robson to declare his joy in the triumph of "justice" in the pages of his 1989 Soccer Annual. The feud, which had begun in 1987 after Rocastle was sent off, would continue to fester and simmer for a couple more years, before exploding into the wondrous brawl of October 1990, for which both sides were docked points by a typically joyless governing body.

Enter Gus Caesar. There are possibly no other three-word combinations in the entirety of the English language capable of provoking a comparable shudder – either of thunderous mirth or cringing despair, depending on your affiliation – and this was the apex of his endeavour. A majestically inept miskick on the edge of his own box allowed Mark Stein to cross from the left, and Danny Wilson applied forehead to ball for the equaliser. "And it's in there!" revelated Brian Moore.

Then, with less than a minute to go, Stein – who had reportedly stomped out of the team hotel after being told that he would be on the bench – won a free-kick. It was flung into the box, but not cleared, and eventually, Ashley Grimes centred from the left towards Other Stein, who swept into the far corner for the winner.

The following season Luton followed Arsenal, returning to the final to lose – again, to Nottingham Forest. DH

This season, Villa were part of one of the most glorious League Cup stories of recent years. Unfortunately, they played the part of comedy stooges, losing to League Two's Bradford City in the semi-finals. It was not always thus: Villa won the League Cup twice in the 90s, their second victory a 3-0 thumping of Leeds United. The result may not have been a huge shock – Villa finished fourth in the Premier League that season – but the scorer of the opener was. Savo Milosevic had become the club's record signing when he joined for £3.5m from Partizan Belgrade, where he had scored at a rate of a little under a goal a game. Unfortunately, the striker's shanks and spoons helped him to the chucklesome tabloid nickname of "Miss-a-lot-evic". So it's safe to say Villa – and Leeds fans for that matter – weren't expecting much when Milosevic collected the ball just inside the opposition half with the game barely 20 minutes old. Perhaps the Leeds defenders heard a few sighs from the crowd – there had to be an explanation why they let the striker amble to the edge of the area unchallenged.

What followed was all down to Milosevic, though, as he dipped the ball over John Lukic from 30 yards out and the result was a formality from there on in. Villa fans expected that goal to be the spur for a glorious career – and it was. Unfortunately, the glorious bit started when he moved to Spain after two more disappointing seasons in Birmingham, which ended with him spitting at his own fans in a defeat to Blackburn. At his new club Zaragoza he rediscovered the form he'd enjoyed at Partizan and eventually joined Parma for £16m and also finished joint top-scorer at Euro 2000. He finished level on goals at that tournament with Patrick Kluivert, another man who, um, distinguished himself in the Premier League. TL